The Quality of Mercy

by Faye Kellerman

  “The boy…” Shakespeare said between breaths. “Not breathing…”

  “Push in on his stomach,” Dunstan said. He held Reina’s head above water as he paddled.

  Gently, Shakespeare pressed Pedro’s belly. Water trickled out from the boy’s gullet, but his chest remained motionless.

  Thomas’s head broke through the waves. In his arms was Miguel, as limp as the wet clothing he wore. Thomas cleared his lungs and shouted, “Something…wrong…with Miguel!”

  “Is he breathing?” Dunstan screamed back.

  “Aye,” Thomas said, inhaling deeply. “Yes…but a dagger…into his back—” Thomas broke into a series of coughs. “The poniard’s handle broke off…is…near his spine! He cannot move his legs!”

  “Put him on his back and hold his neck,” Dunstan said panting. “He knows how to float—praised be the Almighty! Our boat! Beccaaaa!”

  Shakespeare caught sight of the Bounty as he paddled against the waves, keeping the boy’s head above water. Thank God for the Avon River, all those summers he’d spent swimming. He took a deep breath and blew warm air between the boy’s lips.

  Another cannonball belched forth from the galleon and fell a few feet from the Bounty. The impact lifted the keel of the boat out of the water.

  “Rebecca!” Dunstan screamed.

  Shakespeare looked up. “My God!” he cried. Water crashed down upon him. After the shower had cleared, Shakespeare saw the Bounty again—intact, moving toward them with lightning speed. God save Captain Krabbey!

  “Becca!” Thomas shouted. His lungs hurt, his nearly numb legs were two lead weights sucking his torso down under. So cold, but at least it dulled the pain from his leg wound. A wave crest broke upon them, pushing Thomas and Miguel under. They resurfaced, coughing, greedy for air.

  Dunstan screamed, “Becca!”

  Shakespeare felt his limbs harden with cold. The boy lay flaccid in his arm. Again Shakespeare blew into the small mouth. No response.

  “Breathe!” he ordered the lifeless body. “Breathe, damn it, breathe.” He pushed the boy’s stomach in and a small rill of water leaked out. Again he exhaled into the mouth.

  “The boy?” Dunstan shouted to Shakespeare.

  “Nothing,” Shakespeare answered. He was panting, nearly out of breath himself. “Breathe,” he pleaded with Pedro.

  Another cannonball looped into the ocean, perilously close to them and to the Bounty. Dunstan held his breath and gripped Reina as the reaction wave sucked them into the churning waters. Shakespeare surfaced first. Pedro was ashen, his mouth slack, his eyes rolled back in their sockets. Shakespeare inhaled and blew air into Pedro’s water-logged gullet. The sky reverberated with the booms of muskets, was choked with the acrid smoke of gunpowder.

  No response.

  The boy was dead.

  The Bounty dodged cannonballs as it forded the choppy waves.

  “Becca!” screamed Dunstan. “Oh God, I prithee, help us!” His own salty tears mingled with the spray of the ocean. He placed Reina on his shoulder and tried to keep afloat.

  “Breathe,” yelled Shakespeare to Pedro. “Please God, breathe!” The boy was so cold to the touch. Shakespeare began to shiver violently.

  “I’m sinking!” shouted Thomas. “My leg…I can’t hold Miguel!”

  “Release me, then,” begged Miguel. “Save yourself!”

  Thomas felt himself being dragged under, yet he refused to loosen his hold on Miguel.

  “Let me go!” Miguel shouted, crying. “We’ll both die if you don’t.”

  “Wait!” Shakespeare said, still clutching Pedro. He tried to swim to Thomas. He was shaking with chill. “I’m coming to you.”

  The Bounty neared Dunstan, sprayed him with water.

  “Rebecca!” he screamed again.

  A rope was thrown overboard. Dunstan paddled frantically in its direction. A cannonball soared over his head, nicked the boat, then dropped into the sea. The waves reacted. When they resurfaced, Dunstan began to sob as he swam, arm and hand extended to the line, fingertips brushing against the fibers of the rope.

  Hailstones of musketfire hit the sea.

  Weeping, Dunstan clutched the line and Reina as Krabbey and Rebecca tugged on the other end. Slowly Dunstan felt himself rising out of the water, his clothes raining atop the ocean’s surface. They pulled him onto the front of the deck, where he and the girl collapsed.

  Rebecca’s first instinct was to run to them, but Krabbey held her back.

  “Never mind about them!” he shouted. “Get the others. Pull the rigging aft, damn you, whore! I’m a thief and a smuggler, but an Englishman as well, and I’ll be God damned if I lose one of my own to the bastard Spanish whoresons!” Krabbey held aloft his caliver and fired it into the air!

  “Motherfuckers!” he screamed up to the galleon. He was red-faced and shirtless, his belly studded with goose bumps from the wind. But the chilly air did little to cool the heat of his blood. He was burning with the thrill of war.

  Dunstan slowly rose to his feet. “What can I do?” he gasped.

  “Help the whore pull the lines!” yelled Krabbey. His muscles were bulging with tension. “Hurry you up, you yellow-livered weakling! There are Englishmen down there, and I’m no deserter of my countrymen!”

  Dunstan took the line to the mainsail and pulled it forward.

  “I see Shakespeare!” Rebecca shouted. “Miguel, Thomas as well!”

  “Throw them the line, wench!” Krabbey screamed, and laughed. “Ye bastards!” he said, shaking his fist at the galleon. “I’ll see ye in Hell, stinkin’ Papists! But at least I lived well while I lived!” Krabbey spat a glob of phlegm into the air.

  Shakespeare grabbed Miguel and helped Thomas grip the rigging with one hand, Pedro with the other. Dunstan and Krabbey tugged on the line until the boy and Thomas were pulled to safety.

  “Now for the last of us,” Dunstan exclaimed, throwing the rope overboard once again. “God saved us!”

  Krabbey kicked Thomas in the bottom. “Grab the rope, ye limp-prick son of a bitch, and help us pull up the others.”

  “But the boy…needs air.”

  “He’s dead, you dolt, and you’re among the breathin’. Get going!”

  Thomas crawled over to the line on his hands and good leg and gripped the rope.

  A cannonball flew over the stern of the ship and landed a few feet from the deck, splashing buckets of water into the boat’s bilge.

  “Pull, you fucking women!” Krabbey screamed. “Pull, pull!”

  Slowly—too slowly—the line lifted, hoisting Shakespeare and Miguel upward. Shakespeare lost his grip and fell back into the ocean.

  “Gods, I’d better go in after them,” Dunstan said.

  “Hold yer ballocks, fool,” Krabbey said. “We don’t need another body weighing down our muscles. Stay here and work!”

  Shakespeare and Miguel resurfaced, pale and weak. Again the player grabbed the rope. His hands were scraped raw from the coarse hemp fibers. The air was a spray of gunpowder, enveloping them like a thick gray blanket. Shakespeare locked his arm under Miguel’s neck and firmed up his grip upon the rope.

  “Got it?” screamed Krabbey.

  “Again,” yelled Shakespeare. His chest hurt. He couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Pull!” Krabbey ordered. “Stay with it, man, stay with it!”

  Shakespeare clutched the rope as hard as he could, held on to Miguel until he was sure he was choking him. A few feet more…Shakespeare felt his hand weakening, his muscles losing strength.

  “A little bit more,” Rebecca shouted to Shakespeare. Her hair was plastered onto her face, stuffed in her mouth. Her jerkin was soaked, her hands bleeding. “A little bit more, Willy, and we’ve got you both.”

  One final tug and Shakespeare and Miguel tumbled aboard the Bounty. Rebecca burst into tears. Krabbey laughed and yanked on the halyard.

  “Fuck you in the arse!” he yelled to the galleon. “And ye idol-worshiping Pope’s arse too!”


  “What’s wrong with Miguel?” Rebecca cried.

  “Knife in the back,” Thomas said, crawling toward them.

  Rebecca gasped. “Your leg, Tommy—”

  “I breathe,” Thomas said. “Tend to Miguel and the girl!”

  Rebecca looked at the little girl at the front of the boat. She sat huddled, her knees against her chest, her shoulders hunched forward, thumb in mouth. Rebecca wanted to comfort her, until her eyes went back to Miguel. He lay next to the girl, as inert as stone. Immediately Rebecca went to work, running to retrieve blankets, stumbling over her feet with each rock of the boat. Upon her return she began to strip Miguel of his wet clothes, singing soft lullabies to him. He grabbed her hand, squeezed it with strength that belied his condition, and begged her not to let him die. Rebecca swore she would not, her voice strong and sure. But she had her doubts. Miguel was white, making horrible sucking noises with each inhalation.

  Thomas crawled over to Shakespeare, dragging his injured leg. “I’ll hold the boom. Go find another spot to man.”

  “He’s dead,” Shakespeare whispered, still trembling.

  “Who?”

  “The boy,” Shakespeare said. Tears ran down his cheeks. “I couldn’t save him. He lies on the deck…dead.”

  Thomas sat on the deck and took the boom from the player. He shrugged helplessly.

  Krabbey shouted to Shakespeare, “Get your arse over here, ye land chicken, and help me with the boom! The galleon is closing in, starboard side. We have to get the hell out of here!”

  Shakespeare ran to Krabbey’s side, holding the sails for support against the unrelenting sea.

  The winds were hellish, but in Krabbey’s hands they became a divine gift from God. The Spanish galleon, propelled by oars, was ponderous and clumsy. The Bounty with its sails was a fast-flying wench, and under Krabbey’s command she was able to outmaneuver the Iberian dowager at every turn. Though the Bounty’s sides were riddled with musket shot, no lethal damage was done to her body.

  An hour later the galleon was nothing more than a fierce memory, as mighty, yet as intangible, as the roar of the tide.

  Chapter 38

  The first thing Krabbey did when out of harm’s way was to lower the Spanish flag and hoist England’s atop the masthead. By noon the Good Bounty was cursed with a becalmed sea, the winds nothing more than baby’s breath, the waves small wrinkles in a sheet of sage-green glass. They were a day away from English soil, but if the winds didn’t shift, the voyage might take them twice as long. But Krabbey didn’t dwell on “what ifs.” He took advantage of the respite and surveyed the damage done to his boat, each nick reported to Dunstan and Shakespeare with much exaggeration and a string of obscenities. But Dunstan, still reeling from the aftermath of his escape, was too drained to protest the captain’s absurd assessments. He’d pay for all necessary repairs, for the captain’s time and skill as well. Just as long as they arrived home safely.

  An hour passed, the sea remained quiet. Dunstan napped in the sunshine at the front of the boat, Reina snuggled in his arms. His dreams were nightmares of disemboweled flesh, of a shrouded little boy crumpled in the hatch. He was jolted awake by an imagined scream, his heart beating wildly. Reina sighed and nestled deeper into the cradle of his embrace. Dunstan kissed the crown of the little girl’s head and tried to steady his own breathing.

  Thomas had been tending the stern of the ship, but the quietness afforded him a chance to sleep. He drifted off then awoke suddenly with fever, his wounded leg swollen to twice its natural size. Rebecca had done a fine job stitching the wound, yet it throbbed worse than when the flesh had been exposed to the air. Thomas forced himself to sit, then tried to stand, but fell. Cursing, his throat clogged with tears of pain, he lay back down. He debated hobbling over to Shakespeare, offering to help the player repair the ripped sails and frayed cordage, but decided against it. Soon Krabbey would have need of him. Best to rest as much as he could while the sea was peaceful.

  Miguel slept groggily under the protection of the mainsail, his body alternating between bouts of chills and burning fever. Rebecca sat by him, having been awake for over twenty-four hours—dressing wounds, preparing syrups and poultices from supplies she had carried when they initially boarded the Bounty. Her lids drooped, her body ached, but she pressed on. How often she had seen her father languishing in the same condition that was overtaking her now, yet even as he complained, he had never compromised his obligations to his patients.

  Krabbey approached Rebecca as she ministered to Miguel. She had set out fresh blankets atop the companionway hatch, laid Miguel on his stomach under the shade of the mainsail. The blade of the broken dagger was completely swallowed up by the flesh of Miguel’s back. How deep the point sat, how close it was to his spine, Rebecca couldn’t tell without opening him up. She prayed the seas would remain gentle, that her betrothed would be jostled as little as possible. The captain glanced at the man’s ashen face, then at her.

  “He’s lost,” he said. “Ye’d best pay attention to the one with the gash in his leg afore he’s lost as well.”

  “Speak not like that in front of him,” Rebecca whispered.

  “He’s as good as dead, wench,” Krabbey insisted. “He don’na understand a word I speak.”

  Rebecca said nothing, wiped beads of perspiration off Miguel’s brow. Krabbey regarded her face—suffused with exhaustion yet beautiful. He felt himself grow hard, his stare turning to a leer.

  “You gonna give me just due, girlie?” he asked.

  “I’ll pay for the whore of your choice, Captain,” Rebecca offered. “A fair bargain.”

  “Don’na want a whore,” Krabbey continued. “I coulda taken you by force, wench, once you undid me binds. You know that.”

  Rebecca didn’t answer.

  “Ach,” Krabbey said, waving his hand in disgust. “Krabbey never begged for wenches and he ain’t gonna start now.”

  Rebecca said, “I’m deeply indebted to you for my life, Captain. For the lives of my kinsmen as well. You could have deserted us, your fellow countrymen. Instead you proved yourself to be a true Englishman—a man of valor.”

  Krabbey laughed, slapped her back at the compliment. “Yer pissass cousins’ll pay dearly for their lives.” He leaned over Rebecca’s shoulder, his foul breath and body odor assaulting her nostrils even in the open air. He said, “Between you and me, girlie, I might be tempted to say that yer men did me service.”

  “Aye?” Rebecca asked.

  Krabbey nodded. He took her hand, brought it to his groin and squeezed her fingers around his erect penis.

  “Feel that good, me little whore,” Krabbey said. “Ifin they don’t feel like that, send ’em home to mama.”

  “I shall remember such wise words.” She struggled to extricate her fingers but to no avail. Krabbey grinned, then finally released her hand. He lay back on the deck and stared at the sky of woolly gray clouds.

  “Been a while since I seen a maiden blushin’.” Krabbey snickered. He inhaled deeply then said, “The smell of the Spaniard makes a true Englishman go hot, his blood boil with ire but his cock bulge with excitement. Aye, m’lassie, this morning were not the first time I tasted the victory over the Papist bastards!” He turned to Rebecca. “Excusin’ my language if you ain’t no whore.”

  “You fought under Drake?”

  “Three times, girlie,” Krabbey said. “I earned my sea legs proper. I was aboard the Victory when Drake attacked the rear-guard wing of the mealy-assed Armada. I was under Howard when we sailed, our spirits high with the chance of drinkin’ Papist blood. Then comes around the San Juan de Portugal to meet us in battle. I’ll tell you that ship was bigger and mightier than the one we just escaped from. A heavy bastard with rows and rows of guns, over a thousand tons of weight and at least six, seven hundred evil-drooling Catholics ready to grapple and board our ship, burn us at the stake and offer our ashes in their idol worship. Man, I could tell ye, lass, that I was aching for the kill, but I’ll tell
ye the truth when I say that we all pissed in our breeches when we saw the size of that galleon. We braced ourselves for a hot fight.”

  Krabbey laughed.

  “So in comes the San Juan ready to attack, and the rest of the Armada just sailed on, leavin’ Captain Recalde at the helm of the San Juan fightin’ a solo battle. They were a sight to spit at, wench. Drake closed the range to three hundred yards of the Spanish galleon and pounded the shit out of Recalde with our long guns and culverins. Finally the rest of the bastard Papist fleet realized that they’d left the San Juan out to die, and sent in Grangrin to drive Drake away. But by that time Recalde learned faster than a virgin in a vaulting school that Drake could maul the flota whenever we wished and without retaliation.”

  Krabbey grabbed his groin again. “The smell of the sea infected me blood, girlie. I knew I’d never return to me former labor as a tinker. I went out to battle again with Drake in ’eighty-nine, under Norris this time.”

  “The revolt of Don Antonio, aye?” Rebecca said.

  “Aye, the Pretender. Ach, stinkin’ Papists, all of them! Portuguese as well as Spaniards. No wonder we were wiped from the seas. We should have been fightin’ against the Catholics, not with ’em, even if they were fighting each other. Philip, Don Antonio, they’re the same to me—ass-fucking bugger Papists!”

  Miguel moaned. Rebecca stroked his burning cheek and sighed heavily. Quickly, she began to mix a medicinal paste of garlic, flour, and stale beer to bring down Miguel’s fever.

  “Who’s this one to ye?” Krabbey asked her.

  Rebecca said, “My betrothed.”

  Krabbey looked confused. “Then who’s your whole-bodied baldy repairing the sails?” he asked, pointing to Shakespeare.

  Rebecca sighed. Too difficult to explain. “Another cousin,” she answered.

  “Ye with the dying one’s child?” Krabbey inquired.

  “Why do you ask?” Rebecca answered.

  “The boy’ll be a corpse in your arms before we sight land, lassie,” Krabbey said. “Ifin you be with his babe, I’d be willin’ to make ye honest and take the bastard as my own. I got lots of silver, girlie, and can be buying you fine clothes and goodly trinkets. I’m over forty-two and don’t have much time left in this world. All me possessions would be goin’ to you when I die. A goodly bargain, mistress, ifin you could put up with a whoreson like meself for a few years.”